We've all heard how the h.264 is rolled over on patents and royalties. Even with these facts, I kept supporting the best-performing "delivery" codec in the market, which is h.264. "Let the best win", I kept thinking. But it wasn't until very recently when I was made aware that the problem is way deeper. No, my friends. It's not just a matter of just "picking Theora" to export a video to Youtube and be clear of any litigation. MPEG-LA's trick runs way deeper! The [street-smart] people at MPEG-LA have made sure that from the moment we use a camera or camcorder to shoot an mpeg2 (e.g. HDV cams) or h.264 video (e.g. digicams, HD dSLRs, AVCHD cams), we owe them royalties, even if the final video distributed was not encoded using their codecs! Let me show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

UPDATE:Engadget just wrote a reply to this article. The article says that you don't need an extra license to shoot commercial video with h.264 cameras, but I wonder why the license says otherwise, and Engadget's "quotes" of user/filmmaker indemnification by MPEG-LA are anonymous...

UPDATE 2:Engadget's editor replied to me. So according to him, the quotes are not anonymous, but organization-wide on purpose. If that's the case, I guess this concludes that. And I can take them on their word from now on.

UPDATE 3:And regarding royalties (as opposed to just licensing), one more reply by Engadget's editor.

Humans are intellectual species. We can't go further, advance our own species, go to the next level, without art. We need every member of the society to be free to express him/herself via any modern means of art that can REACH OTHERS.

I'm not so sure about that, esp. as far as video goes.

Video material has contributed very little to advancement of human condition; many would say that on the contrary, it has a dampening impact (as anyone who reads youtube comments can testify).

Then you're viewing the wrong site. I'm only using Vimeo, and we have a great community in there, mostly filmmakers, and viewers who appreciate art. I personally hate youtube.

Check these videos for example: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2009/11/14/the-best-hv203040-videos/
These are made by the community that I belong to, the Canon HV20 consumer HDV camera. These videos are made mostly by non-pros, and yet they're amazing. And there's a reason why most of these videos are uploaded on Vimeo instead of Youtube. Because people on Vimeo appreciate this kind of thing.

So, yes, video has had a major impact to our culture. But minimizing video's importance by just mentioning the trolls at youtube doesn't paint a full picture.

Most movies are total garbage and I don't buy into the concept of a human condition.

I remember an aid worker in Haiti writing about how movies have a negative influence there since they encourage unrealistic expectations. That's the real problem with movies, they provide a distorted view of reality.

Removing print from the world would certainly set it back but removing movies would have mixed results. There's be less entertainment but it would encourage people to find satisfaction in their own lives.

You could even argue that internet video is some of the most negative. YouTube allows you to just sit all day and watch nut shots. Not that I don't enjoy a good nut shot once in a while, but YouTube allows people to watch hours of nut shots or baby fart vidoes instead of at least spending a few hours on a movie to get another point of view, meaning, plot, something. It's the fast food equivalent of video, not something that a society should take pride in.